First Photo! NASA Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet Target

Sixty days before its flyby, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft has snapped a picture of its quarry – comet Hartley 2.

The spacecraft is on track for a November 4 flyby of the comet, ready to inspect Hartley 2 for over two months.

The spacecraft is on an extended mission known as EPOXI.

By the way, EPOXI is super short for a combination of names: Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI).

“Like any tourist who can’t wait to get to a destination, we have already begun taking pictures of our comet — Hartley 2,” advised Tim Larson, the project manager for EPOXI from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

“We have to wait for November 4 to get the close-up pictures of the cometary nucleus, but these approach images should keep the science team busy for quite some time as well,” Larson added.

This first image of comet Hartley 2 was obtained on September 5 when the spacecraft was 60 million kilometers (37.2 million miles) away from the comet.